Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser Conducts Critical Flight Test

Sierra Nevada Corporation is developing the Dream Chaser for the last ten years, together with NASA, the latter then singled out to develop more than 125 million dollars.

Yesterday, November 12, in the United States of America private Corporation Sierra Nevada told the public about the successful completion of the tests reusable spaceship Dream Chaser.

In August, the Dream Chaser was flown through the air for more than two hours during a captive-carry test while attached to a helicopter.

Dream Chaser made a landing at a US air force base Edwards, which is located in the Mojave desert in California.

Below, photos and renderings of the new spacecraft.

Main goal of test flight was verifying ability of guidance system for independent flight and landing. A fully working version of the Dream Chaser could start making deliveries as soon as 2020, if all goes according to schedule.

Dream Chaser is aiming to deliver cargo to the ISS beginning in 2019 and will fly six cargo service missions to and from the space station until 2024. The company also has a contract with the United Nations to launch payloads into orbit on the Dream Chaser. Sierra Nevada representatives announced on Twitter Saturday. This landing seems to have gone much better, based on the pictures that Sierra Nevada released, though the company hasn't given much additional information.

In 2014, the space agency announced it would only fund the Dream Chaser rival programs, SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft, for Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap). It's an important milestone in the Dream Chaser's development, as Sierra Nevada readies the plane for spaceflight. The Dream Chaser, however, which is meant to launch on top of an Atlas V rocket, glides down to Earth like a plane after reentering the atmosphere, landing horizontally on a runway.